On the Net

Did you realize that your classroom will influence how well you learn? A study by the University of Salford and Nightingale Associates shows that a well designed classroom will improve learning performance tremendously.

Pinterest is becoming a great source of information for consumers aswell as professionals. Mie Frey Damgaard and Peter Orntoft used Pinterest as a source to investigate color choices and preferences of Pinterest users. By compiling the images, analysing the colors of the images and categorising them by spaces such as living room, bedroom, kitchen etc, they we're able to make an overview of consumer's preferences for Jotun, a leading decorative paints brand. Click on the title above to go to their Behance page, with examples and a short film on the creative process.

The Art Institute of Chicago together with the Argonne National Laboratory recently discovered Picasso didn't use specialized oil paints as was commonly used by painters in his day. Picasso used paint that, as the researchers discovered, strongly resembeled matched Ripolin, the first commercial house paint. Read more on UPI.com by clicking on the title.

The Camelia Cottage by Australian firm 4site Architecture is a great way of using color to connect the inside with the outside. Using blue and green emphasises that effect. Click on the title to see what we're talking about.

Have you heard the BBC Radio doc series that covers colors in several ways? From Homer, to color in sports to everything in between. Tracy Logan investigates the world of colors. It's just a bit wierd to only hear about color, but not see what's being talked about. There's some short items, and longer ones to listen to aswell. Click on the titel to listen to the series on the web.

Rycoline put up a film on how ink is made. With a some classical music in the background it almost turns into a ballet! They make printing ink, a specific type of ink, with a picky customer base. You can tell the owner is really passionate about his work, and seems to be a structured type too. It's a worthwhile clip to check out if you like 'How do do they it' or if you like people with a passion. Just click on the title and scroll down on the page to go to the film!

In this article in The Art Newspaper, China's new debate on whether to give artists royalty payments when their work is resold at auctions is discussed. It would be good for the artists to get some extra cash, but it could also damage the art market as it would reduce profits for art traders or raise prices for buyers, meaning they make less cash. What do you think?

Bruce Nussbaum's recent contribution to Co.Design offers a great insight into the mind of the creative, and it explains some things you can do to become more creative. It's not about creativity as in entrepreneurship. It's more about becoming creative inside, also by understanding yourself more. The three steps Nussbaum explains are: 1. Disconnect. 2. Delve into the past, and 3. Be masterful. How do you start? Put on your walking shoes! (read the article and you'll get it... just click on the title!)

John Mahoney wrote this article on colors in photo's recently, wondering about how much colors can change our perception of a photograph. He ends stating: 'These photographs are the real deal, though, and to me, their power (even the colorizations) resonates far beyond their "filter"—they're starting with a level of authenticity that's impossible to fake, even with the best digital simulation. As of now, anyway!'. Go to the full article in American Photo by clicking on the title.

Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam has announced the Paul Huff Award winner of 2013, and this year it goes to duo Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs. Darius Himes, chairman of the jury explains: "As illusionists intent on pushing against the boundaries of the medium, Onorato and Krebs skillfully engage their audiences and convey some of the magic that lies at the core of photographic image-making." Onorato & Krebs win a 20.000 euro cash prize aswell as the opportunity to do a project with Foam. Click the photo for more information, and more photo's (photo Spins 2, 2013, Oronato & Krebs).

A lot of companies and countries are having tough times. Budget cuts are making things tough for the design sector aswell, and making it tough for 'design' to reach it's full potential for companies, countries, society in general! Lance Hosey tells us why design is so important to keep doing, and why it's important to keep our surroundings beautiful. Click the titel to go to the article in the New York Times.

It still seems so far away, but designers have been working on the fashion colors and designs for 2014 for quite a while already. Sophicolor, a Precision Textile brand, has just announced the 2014 trends. They refer to the trends as Precision (controlled palettes for geometric patterns), Emotion (the spirit of rebellion) and India (as a growing influence in the world). Click the photo to read more about the SophiColor trends for 2014.

Every man pretty much has a type, a category you can put him in (please don't attack us for that statement!). Lunchbreath selected a few types and gave them each their own palette of colors! We don't really agree with the types (what's hip about the guy to the right?) but it is funny. So check it out, just click the photo to see more!

April 13: If you want to learn more about colors, the first thing you should do is take more time to look at them. Just choose and object, a photo, a painting and look closely. Like this example by Paula Kuitenbouwer, where she selected some photo's and explains what she sees. It's simple, and doesn't seem very exciting, but after a while you'll find yourself becoming more sensitive to details and nuances in the palettes. Try it for yourself!

April 14: This wednesday Philips is organizing a webinar on light and wellbeing as part of it's Luminous Talks series. In the webinar, Craig Bernecker discusses several human responses, pshycological as well as physiological, to lighted enviroments. Click the title to register for the seminar.

April 20th: How else are you supposed to learn? How else are you supposed to progress? Here's a list of 11 other tendencies of creative people by Kim Phillips. What's this list good for? Well... we like lists like this to keep checking if we're on the right track, to keep checking if there's something we can do better. But they're not like the ten commandments or five pillars. They're merely inspirational. Click the title to check them out.

Light is normally seen as a practical thing for seeing things, so we can read, enjoy dinner with our guests with dimmed lighting, so we know when not to cross the road, or to make a concert stage look fantastic. Light is changing, technology around light is changing Read the New York Times article by Felicity Barringer. "This is where the promise is," said Dr. Siminovitch of the U.C. Davis center. "The promise is going to be on well-being, wellness, biology — lighting starts doing something for us that is inherently different." Click the title to read the full article.

Jerry Large, columnist for the Seattle Times, wrote a book review considering how our perception is colored in several ways. A woman wearing red is prettier (think Lady in Red), a girl in poor family will be percieved less smart. More examples like this. As Jerry Large explains 'I couldn't help myself. I had to pick up yet another book on the little things that make big differences in who we are and how we behave.' That which influences our judgement in incorrect ways is an immensly interesting subject, and what to do about it is a challenge. How can you reduce these distortions of your perception? To read the full book review, click the title.

Tahseen Dilbar made a selection of black & white photo's with a color touch to them. The photo's are a selection from different photographers and for the Red theme week we naturally selected one that expresses red's character best. Click the image to see Tahseen's full selection.

Sight is essential. We are highly influenced by what we see, how things look, in our perception of them. Even on social media like Pinterest this is clear. Pinterest especially is mainly focussed on the image and less so on text. In a test done recently on Pinterest, they clearly found a correlation between color and 'repin-ability' of an image on Pinterest. Result? The most repinable color is... red. Click the title to read the full Digiday.com article.

Colors are used often for it's signalling role. Airports for example will used differently colored signs for different purposes. At airports possibly yellow to direct passengers to gates, and green to direct them to other facilities. Austin Carr of FastcoDesign recently wrote about CNN changing it's website so it will change color according to the news. An interesting feature we think, but Austin correctly wonders how CNN will profit from it before we (the public) don't notice it anymore. Click the title above to read the full article on Fast Company.

Mark Wilson of CoDesign recently published an in-depth look into Apple's color strategy. If you think Apple's are only black or white and it's that simple, read this article and learn how a color strategy can be applied to remain fresh and distintive from the competition. The article is part of 'The Oral History', a series on Apple for which several members of the CoDesign team interviewed over 50 insiders. Click the title to read the article.

Colors are attributed different meanings in different cultures. It's something you don't really think about when you travel, or when you're on the internet. But Joe Doveton, who wrote for Smart Insights, has some tips for webdesiginers on how to approach using colors that work for different cultures. (click the title to go to the article on Smart Insights)

Throughout october the La Tour Paris 13 project will be open to the public. Gallery Itinerrance in France brought together 100 artists from all over the world to completely redecorate and entire building. What happens then? The building gets demolished. Have a look at the video on their website www.itinerrance.fr (click title) for the preview of the project and the location of the building.

We found a great concise guide to help you remember who's who in painting. Some painters are easy to recognize of course, like a Van Gogh and a Picasso. But if you're not that much into art, some of the others you just might not recognize easily... The tips to recognize the painters range from big asses to tortured faces. It's an entertaining guide for sure!

The design industry in Eastern Europe is developping. It's history however isn't well documented. Kasia Jezowska is a starting a research project to uncover the history of Eastern European design and needs your help! The history starts after WWII, when the Polish government hired creatives to help the marketing efforts that promote the Polish coal industry at tradefairs. Check out the video about the project, contribute, and recieve some black gold in return.

While we are looking for colorful things, scientists are looking for dark matter. 85% of the universe consists of dark matter, the thing is, we can't see it. Scientists can't even see it and use huge scientific instruments to search for it. To do this, they try to get dark matter to collide with an atom, so it will emit a flash of light. That short flash of light is the sign that dark matter is really there. Read this interesting story by Corey S. Powell about the universe we can't see. www.popsci.com

Facebook is rebranding, adapting it's logo's and icons to be more recognizable. More recognizable? Isn't the F or the popular thumbs up recognizable enough by now? And everyone knows facebook is blue. Well, according to this article by Mark Wilson for Co.Design, they aren't. Apparently blue doesn't work well for the thumbs up icon either... Read more by clicking on the title.

Apparently skin pigments can charge batteries. That's pretty hot stuff if you ask us. Colors enegize the world in more than one way! Click the title to see the full story on Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the USA.

According to Danish Astronomer Peter Thejil, the dark side of the moon is turquoise. Normally we'd think the dark side is, well... dark. Black, or at least grey. But apparently the moon is more colorful than that and it's turquoise. There's quite some scientific stuff you have to do to figure out the color of the moon (...). Click the title to read Guardian reporter Ian Sample's article on the topic.

In the Farrow Ball 'My Colour' competition, over 12.000 votes we're cast on over 800 entries of favorite colors. Participants could send in images of their favorite colors and explain what they love about it. The image that got the most votes was Chrysalis, sent in by Samantha Mansell. Check out why she loves it, and images of the 19 runners up by clicking on the image. Green is also the Pantone color of the year. That green is emarald green though.

Colors are a sensitive subject. In sports you'd expect colors to be part of a teams heritage. Not in Formula 1 racing. Mclaren for example has been making silver colored cars for many years, and most recently with orange added to it. Many years earlier McLaren used to drive in the Marlboro colors red and white. With the news that Ron Dennis, long time team principle until a few years ago, is returning to his old seat one of the first things he may change is the colors. We wonder if he could pull off such a thing at Ferrari. Click the title to read what's going on at McLaren.

Color Objects encourages you to get a better eye and appreciation for colors and characters. To get a special selection of pics and info for you, we find designers and artists that make colorful work from all over the world. There's a lot of character in colors, and having a closer look will change your view of the world and people around you. So we share a host of pics and info from design, art, cultures and the natural world. All about colors.